The New York Daily News comes through in the clutch for sports and music bloggers today, blowing open a story accusing universally loved former professional athlete Roger Clemens of a ten-year affair with country singer Mindy McCready. Normally, the extramarital affairs of retired pitchers wouldn’t make much of a splash here, even if it was with a country singer who last had a hit in 1998. But any chance to recap McCready’s rap sheet just can’t be missed.

First, though, the Post’s juicy details!

According to sources, Clemens was with his Red Sox teammates in a Fort Myers, Fla., bar when then-teenager McCready caught his eye. After Clemens threw a shirt with his and several teammates’ signatures onstage, an introduction was made.

“It was love at first sight, no doubt about it,” said a source with intimate knowledge of the relationship.

According to the source, McCready did not learn that Clemens was married to Debbie Clemens until McCready attended a baseball game with her two younger brothers and read Clemens’ bio in the program. The source says that McCready was too young to be angered by the news that Clemens was taken.

After hitting stardom in the mid-1990s – her debut album “Ten Thousand Angels” went platinum – McCready continued to see Clemens, according to the sources, although there were several breaks along the way when McCready was involved with other men. She was briefly engaged to actor Dean Cain and later was in an abusive relationship with Billy McKnight – the father of her only child, Zander.

Even during her troubles, the sources say Clemens was never far from McCready. Clemens would frequently send bundles of cash in FedEx packages, they say, as she dealt with her legal issues. According to one of the sources, Clemens even reached out to McCready through an intermediary while she was in jail last year, although McCready had cut ties with the Rocket as far back as 2006.

Sources say that when McCready, now 32, and Clemens were together, there was barely any friction between them. The two were known to take lavish trips to Las Vegas and New York. One time, McCready attended a Yankees game at the Stadium and jokingly donned a catcher’s mask near the home dugout. During another Big Apple excursion, the two holed up in the trendy SoHo Grand and later partied with Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan. McCready, according to a source, even bummed a cigar off His Airness to give to Clemens. There were personal love missives to Clemens hidden in McCready’s album liner notes.

An affair with a then-15-year-old! Parties with Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan! Spectacular. Still, a mention of “legal troubles” barely scratches the surface of McCready’s 2004-2007 national tour of courtrooms and jail cells, which includes an 2005 arrest in Arizona for identity theft and kidnapping and a five month jail stay for beating up her mother that ended at the end of 2007.

In case, you’re wondering what the pre-Oxycontin addiction McCready sounded like, her biggest hit “Guys Do It All The Time” is below. At very least, listening to her song reminded me how much mid-’90s country sucked.